• Production molds for sale

     

    I will have a number of rubber and plaster production molds available for sale, large molds will cost $500 each,  for the most part they cost me around $300 in materials and more than half a day time to make. These are the molds used to make many duplicate casts in cast stone or concrete.

    Preferably a similar sculpture outfit can make use of these so I can get them out of my basement.
    Most of the larger molds weigh in the neighborhood of 100 pounds.

    I will generate a list and maybe photos soon. These are not likely going to be shipped as they would have to be crated and packed and I no longer have access to freight truck dock shipping.

    They are located in NW Iowa

     

  • NY City firealarm boxes

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Mine dates to 1929, and the NYC system was unique, it was custom made, every other city used  boxes produced by Gamewell, Horni Signal and others, the NYC system was the most artistically attractive produced, with classical Victorian styled lines, topped by a torch, proportioned beautifully. These 900 pound cast iron posts were put in place by Victor Fine during a major overhaul and updating of the old system and central offices.

  • Kiln fired terracotta discontinued

    Kiln fired terracotta is no longer available, as the kiln sat unused for over a year and a half and absolutely no one expressed any serious interest in this high quality authentic material, I decided to put the kiln up for sale last week, and get it moved  out of here as soon as the buyer can do so.

    I do have a few pieces already fired, but due to a catastrophic fire at my workplace June 14th that destroyed all four buildings and contents while leaving me with 2nd degree burns along with skin graft surgery on my arms trying to put the fire out, I no longer have access to the table saw and freebee packing materials I used to make use of to cut and assemble my shipping crates or make use of used cardboad boxes for smaller items.

  • Costs for shipping gone through the roof

    I suppose it was inevitable, but as of today, the cost for the lowest priced 1/2″ CDX plywood which I use to build my shipping crates with has soared from an average of $12-$20 a sheet to $96 a sheet at Menards ($85 with a mail-in “rebate”) that now makes shipping any further sculptures that need crates- unviable, I can’t bite the $40 cost for plywood, $8 cost for styrofoam packing materials, and another approximately $75 for FedEx ground shipping for a sculpture priced in a way that includes shipping, not even the $20 shipping flat rate fee I added comes close to covering the actual costs for even small items now.

    Regrettably, I am suspending any further sculpture sales at this time, I can’t expect a client to pay $125 to ship a $250 sculpture, this is also in addition to the big increase in casting materials plus now sales tax is added to that no matter where it’s coming from which wasn’t before, and the truck shipping to get the materials to me is also up considerably, even if as I have had to do recently- I buy just what I need to cast one sculpture for a client, the UPS shipping charges to get two 50# bags to me costs more than the whole materials order!

    And the shipping costs has gone up dramatically every January, just look at the 2nd photo, FedEx compared to UPS for my “1664” NYC charter seal plaque, the shipping weight was 50 pounds, $175 value and it cost $52.73 thru UPS to ship to a client in California, while UPS quoted $65.85 and shows the break down of all of their little add-on  fees added in before the package even leaves my porch! The “additional handling” fee of $16 shown is for any shipment not in a cardboard container, so they are charging now $16 to handle wood crates which by their design eliminates breakage claims but they don’t care. FedEx charges about the same “special handling” fee.

    They both charge pickup and delivery fees, with UPS it was $6.90 pickup fee, plus another $4.45, $5.90 and $1.38= $18.63 in charges  JUST for picking up a package, and before it even goes anywhere! add in the $16 “special” handling fee and it’s  $34.63 and the shipment hasn’t gone anywhere yet.
    I remember back in 1978 being able to sell my 294-G keystone for $38.50 with shipping included, and I could ship it from NYC to California back then and make a decent profit.

     

     

  • Winged griffin or lion after Hecla Iron Works’ 1870s brownstone newel post

    I cast a 2nd winged griffin, so I have a pair, needing to clean this one up, attach the wings prime and paint it.
    I’ll be making a mold of the base “rock” to-morrow.

    I have enough resin to cast one more.

    The first pair will be going on my front step, the 3rd cast will be in inventory for sale, these will be sold with an acid stained concrete base they attach to which will help keep them standing in the garden or indoors with a nice heavy base.

    Prices include shipping and the base, the wings will be attached with bolts like the original 1870s  iron ones were, but will be removed for shipping.

    https://www.urbansculptures.com/cart/product/winged-griffin/

  • Winged griffin after Hecla iron works

    I am pleased with how this turned out, they need a base of some kind and I havent been able to find just the right one, but that rock in the photo is just about right, so I may very well make a mold of it and cast it in acid stained concrete so these can be mounted to them and be securely standing upright. Cut stone is very expensive, about $150 each plus shipping, the landscaping blocks you see out there are all concrete and the wrong size and so forth, so it leaves making them myself.

    I will probably have these  winged griffins with a base for $375

    They are black resin, primed and painted gloss black, the wings attached with stainless steel machine screws, along with same for attaching to the base.

    They can be done without the wings too, most of the few originals left in NYC lack their wings- they were broken off.

  • Winged griffin after Hecla iron works

    The first black resin cast of the winged dragon is out of the mold, looks very good! after the seam lines get sanded down and it gets surface cleaning to remove any oily release agent, it can be primed with black primer and painted gloss black, but that will be after the wings are made and attached with stainless steel machine screws first.
    It took exactly 8 quarts.

  • Winged dragon after Hecla iron works, about to cast.

    With the mold now ready to use, I ordered the black resin, 4 gallons worth, if I’m lucky I might get 2 complete casts out of that, or I could be a quart or two short, either way it will be close.

    I don’t expect the resin to get here this week, most likely next Monday/Tuesday.

    More photos etc then, I will also have a better idea what time and materials it will take for each and I can calculate prices on these as well as get photos of a finished cast.

     

  • Winged griffin, after Hecla Iron Works progress

    I have all 3 molds for this design completed, the largest one- for the griffins’ body is still drying it’s plaster support shell. Soon I will order the black resin needed and can make a couple of test casts. I calculated it will take 7 quarts to fill the body mold and 1-2 quarts for the wings, the resin is not inexpensive!

  • Winged griffin, after Hecla Iron Works progress

    I have all 3 molds for this design completed now, the last one is drying out, soon I’ll order the black resin to pour a couple of test castings. I calculated it will take 7 quarts to fill the griffin’s body mold and 1-2 quarts for the wings.

  • Winged griffin, after Hecla Iron Works progress

    The 2nd wing mold is now finished, and ready to start the mold for the body of the griffin himself.

    With the plaster model inside the box built for this, it will have to be embedded halfway with clay and the first half of the rubber portion brushed on with multiple applications, and a plaster shell poured over that. Once the plaster hardens, the box and the clay gets removed and the second half of the rubber mold brushed on, the sides of the box get strapped together to surround the sides, and the 2nd half of the plaster mold made.

    The box is about 28″ long, 9″ deep, 14″ wide.

  • Winged griffin, after Hecla Iron Works

    The first half of the first mold is done, to-morrow the 2nd half will be done and the work makes some more progress.

    The Hecla Iron Works of Brooklyn NY was named after Mount Hecla, an active volcano in Iceland. A fitting name for a design studio and foundry established by two Scandinavians: Danish-born Niels Poulson and his Norwegian partner, Charles Eger.

    The two men came to the United States at different times in the 1860s, and founded their business in a small office in Williamsburg in 1876, a boom time for building in Brooklyn and New York City. Both men had backgrounds as mason-journeymen, and Poulson had been an architectural draftsman in Washington DC, and architect/engineer for the Architectural Ironworks of New York.

     

  • Winged griffin

    I decided to finally make the 3 molds needed to make this griffin newel post. I had 3 of them in my collection, cast-iron from the 1870s they were used as newel posts on the stoops of buildings in NYC.
    Many of them had their wings broken off, many probably deliberately by building supers to remove the fairly sharp pointed wings to avoid injuries or tearing of ladies dresses.

    They were made by Heckla Iron works in Brooklyn.

    The originals were cast-iron, a material that would cost hundreds of dollars just for the castings, so casting them in metal is not likely, casting them in any kind of plaster, cast stone or ceramic/terracotta would be too fragile, so the only practical material these can be made of in a two part resin, even so this is expensive and would take about $150 worth to cast the 3 pieces.

    I am at present working on the molds required, the wings will take two two piece molds and the body will take one two piece mold and a supporting shell, my plaster cast needs some repairs, refinement and chasing some missing details back in, sometime later this summer I should have the work done.

    After I have a couple in my hands I can price them better then, I anticipate they will be around $350 each, the resin comes in deep black, so if they are primed and painted with a gloss black paint they would be like the original painted cast-iron pieces which were usually gloss black too like the 2nd photo shows.

    The resin can be drilled to install on a base or something, I would not recommend using the resin casts AS newel posts, but in the garden or just as decorative newel posts not supporting an active handrail they’d be stunning.

     

     

    48 Perry st, Greenwich Village, the pair do not appear to be original to this location, maybe even this building, an architectural iron firm

    had a hand in restoring them but it is unknown what exactly they did, at the very least they likely replaced missing wings. All of the ones Ive seen had provisions in the tops of the heads for a handrail, these two don’t so  they may have been altered, in fact the whole ground floor was extensively changed and this ugly concrete going up he stairs that the griffins sit on certainly is not original. Further- the building dates closer to around 1895 while these griffins date to ca 1870s.